But in an interview with CNN Money, he said it wasn’t gambling — which he was reported to have lost a lot of money on — as much as bad real estate deals backed by his personal collateral. From CNN: The economic chaos caused the implosion of Walker Ventures, his Chicago real estate firm. “We got caught in the recession. We had a ton of undeveloped real estate. It went bad. The banks wanted their money back,” he said. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Walker had unwisely put up his personal financial portfolio as collateral. He ended up being forced to pay back about $20 million to banks.